The Fringe of the Road 101 



the surface is always slightly crumbling, few plants 

 will be able to find a foothold, even if the inclination 

 allows the access of sufficient light and warmth. 

 The primrose-covered banks which are so familiar 

 on English highways and byways are not only the 

 most beautiful of all borders to our roads, but are 

 hardly excelled among all the scenes of spring. 

 The slope of the banks provides for primroses and 

 other spring flowers the warmest of sunshine and 

 the fullest protection from the wind. There is 

 no more typical picture of the spring awakening in 

 England than some bank in a sunny lane, where 

 the primroses are opening with the dog-violets 

 and wood-sorrel, and the eye and throat of ^the 

 nesting robin gleam in the niche beneath their 

 roots. 



Rarer, but hardly less attractive, are the watery 

 borders of the lanes in the land of the drowsy- 

 flowing Severn renes. Beyond the grass-fringe, 

 and beneath the lofty hedges, there flows a deep 

 current of clear water with a motion that just waves 

 the green filaments clinging to the submerged 

 stems, and lightly stirs the fins of the hovering 

 minnows. The summer vegetation of these renes 

 is stately and distinctive, and peculiarly rich in 

 plants of aromatic fragrance. The smell of mint 

 dwells over them by day and by night, and it is 

 constantly mingled with the sharper scent of wild 

 celery, which lifts a screen of strong, succulent 

 branches when the golden irises have failed. The 

 fertile soil is uncongenial to rushes, and apparently 

 also to most kinds of sedge. Such hungry vegeta- 



